JOE DALLET 
1907-1937

JOE DALLET was born February 18, 1907. His family was 
well to do, and conservative in political and social 
outlook. 

As a boy he went to a private school, Woodmere Academy,
and to Lawrence High School. He entered Dartmouth 
College at the age of 18. He studied there two and a half 
years but, impatient with what a formal academic education 
had to offer, left in his junior year. 

He went into the insurance business, and was not satis-
fied. He took a trip to Europe, and returned to business 
for a while. He served for some time in Madison House. 

He went to work, finally, as a longshoreman, not because 
of economic pressure, but because he felt then that failure 
to earn his living by productive labor was to be a parasite, 
and that he needed to do something in the labor struggle. 
From that time on Joe was a worker, and he soon became a 
leader of workers. He joined the Communist Party in 1929. 
He was a steel organizer before the days of the C.I.O., when 
it was many times harder and more dangerous to organize 
steel workers.

When the fascist attack on the Spanish Republic began, 
he volunteered to go and fight for democracy in Spain. 
Joe Dallet was killed in action during an advance of the 
International Brigade, on October 17, 1937.

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